The Woodward Iron Company was founded on December 31, 1881, by two brothers, William & Joseph Woodward. William was the company president and Joseph was the company secretary.[1] The company operated mines, quarries and furnaces that were connected by a private industrial railroad in Bessemer, Jefferson County, Alabama. The company administrative office was located near Woodward Ore Mine #1 south of Paul's Hill in Bessemer, Alabama.
By the 1920's Woodward Iron was one of the nation's largest suppliers of pig iron. The workforce eventually grew to more than 2000 men. In 1968, Mead Corporation acquired Woodward Iron Company just as the nation's steel industry was about to begin a long decline. By the mid 1970's the entire site closed down. Today much of the 1,200-acre (4.9 km2) site has been cleared and is either abandoned property or has been re-developed for lighter industrial use. Little remains of the once sprawling plant except for an isolated chimney or two.
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The industrial track operated by Woodward was on on the "north" face of Red Mountain. The Woodward line came up the mountain, crossed under the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company's railroad, and had an interchange track with it. Then the Woodward line, using a switchback configuration, worked along the face of Red Mountain to each of three mine sites. To the west of this location, is the Sloss #2 mine site, and to the east is the TCI/USX Wenonah #7 mine site and head of the High Line.
The three Woodward ore mines were Woodward #1, #2 and $3. Woodward #1 was located south of Paul’s Hill in Bessemer. In addition to administrative offices this site also included Doctor’s Offices and the Commissary. Woodward #2 was south of Lipscomb and west of TCI #7. Woodward #3 was south of Lipscomb, and was the last operational site on Red Mountain Number three closed about 1953. The tipple was located at the Woodward #3 Mine on Red Mountain. There was a tailings dump on the south side of the mountain, at the end of track at Woodward #1 site.
The company also operated the Pyne Mine, one of the most productive ore mines in the Birmingham District. It was located east of Red Mountain near the Lacey's Chapel community in Bessemer, Alabama. A Slope mines shaft on the northwest face of Red Mountain, it angled steeply, about 30 degrees, downward to the southeast. There were very few deep shaft mines for iron ore in the Birmingham District. In 1918, Woodward began construction of the vertical shaft Pyne Mine, which reached iron ore about 1,200 feet (370 m) below ground. This mine was operated for a period of years, closed, and reopened for demand in World War II. It closed about 1972.
The Woodward blast furnaces were located in what was then called Woodward, Alabama, (an unincorporated area). It was between present day Brighton and Dolomite on the site of the plantation of Fleming Jordan, an early pioneer of Jefferson County. The Jordan plantation was located in present day Hueytown, Alabama. Furnace #1 went into operation on August 17, 1883, on the site of Mrs. Jordan's old rose garden. The ore was transported to the furnace by rail through Lipscomb and Brighton to the Woodward Furnace. By 1909, there were three blast furnaces at this site, producing a daily output of 250,000 tons.[2] As the steel industry declined in the early seventies, the last blast furnace closed in 1973. Koppers Company purchased the remaining coke oven production plant and continued that operation for several additional years before it also closed.